重口味SM

Kyle Battiston recently moved into new lab space at the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research in the MaRS building (photo by Jeff Comber)

U of T startup uses anti-inflammatory coating to ensure your body won't reject medical implants

From screws and plates for broken bones to metal hips and dental implants, every day thousands of people undergo surgeries to implant medical devices in the body.

But sometimes their immune systems respond by attacking these foreign objects.

For some patients, this inflammatory response can be controlled by drugs. Others will experience device failure.

But what if there didn鈥檛 have to be an immune response at all? That鈥檚 the thinking behind 重口味SM researcher Kyle Battiston and the disruptive new anti-inflammatory product he plans to roll out through a new startup company, KSP2. 

A postdoctoral fellow at the Faculty of Dentistry and a recent graduate from U of T's  (IBBME), Battiston originally designed the anti-inflammatory polymer as a tissue engineering scaffold.

Like climbing plant trainers, these scaffolds allow tissue engineers to grow cells in desired shapes. But fragile cells can react poorly to non-native cellular environments, potentially causing new tissues to fail. With anti-inflammatory scaffolds, the possibility of successfully growing tissue increases.

Battiston and his colleagues quickly saw a global relevance for the biomaterial. 

By altering the chemistry of the biomaterial, Battiston and his colleagues were able to coat medical devices with the novel biomaterial 鈥 it鈥檚 made from a family of polymers found to reduce inflammation, specifically when it interacts with white blood cells. The coating actually calms the body鈥檚 immune response 鈥 eliminating the risk of both implant failure as well as the need for anti-inflammatory drugs. 

Best of all? It鈥檚 versatile.

鈥淲e鈥檝e learned this family of materials can retain its anti-inflammatory character while adapting diverse physical properties,鈥 he says, allowing Battiston and his new startup team to adapt the material to a wide variety of specific medical uses. 

KSP2鈥檚 first product may be market-ready within the next five years 鈥 and Battison expects it will be followed by a host of other health-related applications. 

鈥淭he first application will be targeted to peripheral nerve stimulation, but we鈥檙e working on a dental application at the same time,鈥 says Battiston, who has recently moved into new lab space at the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research in the MaRS building.

鈥淭his has turned into a niche technology opportunity that is resonating with more than six groups with diverse end applications that Kyle and his company KSP2 are now talking to,鈥 says , Battison鈥檚 supervisor, and a key researcher in the newly formed Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research.

鈥淭his [technology] represents an outstanding opportunity that could keep creative and innovative scientists and engineers in the Toronto entrepreneurial ecosystem, and result in international attention and market penetration for leading medical technologies.鈥

Still, despite his product鈥檚 potential, Battiston didn鈥檛 always imagine himself an entrepreneur. 

鈥淲hen I started grad school I didn鈥檛 consider entrepreneurism a thing I would pursue. But seeing Professor Santerre鈥檚 vision changed that. If you want to make an impact in health care you can鈥檛 just do research. If you really want to accelerate and bring that technology to market you have to be involved in that process. That鈥檚 a big part of Dr. Santerre鈥檚 vision of what students should do.鈥

Battiston credits the University鈥檚 incubation resources with helping to get his fledgling company off the ground, including the Banting & Best Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (BBCIE) and the Health Innovation Hub. 

鈥淜yle follows the proud tradition of the Santerre labs for developing and spinning out polymer materials for use in healthcare,鈥  said Karen Sievewright, managing director of the BBCIE. 鈥淗e is receiving help along the way from the vast entrepreneurial eco-system at U of T and is one of the first recipients of the BBCIE Collaboration Fellowships.鈥 

Erin Vollick is a writer with the Faculty of Dentistry at the 重口味SM

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